Study shows case loads for federal judges vary greatly

WASHINGTON - Federal judges across the nation are shouldering criminal case-loads that vary widely in size, sometimes even among judges in the same courthouse, according to a study released Sunday.

The study by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, at Syracuse University found three courthouses where the judge with the largest criminal caseload had sentenced more than twice the number of defendants as the judge with the smallest caseload from October 2006 through July 2012. They were Los Angeles; Beaumont, Texas; and Camden, N.J.

Overall, the study found 18 courthouses where the heaviest sentencing load was at least 1.4 times larger than the smallest.

The study was made possible because the clearinghouse, which uses the Freedom of Information Act to collect criminal justice data, earlier this year assembled the first publicly available database of sentencing records, sortable by judge.

Judges in the courthouses with the widest disparities cited unique local circumstances to explain the differences.

David Sellers, a spokesman for the administrative office of U.S. courts, said he wasn't surprised or concerned with these findings. He noted, however, that the judiciary needs more judges, particularly along the Southwest border.

That appeal for more judges was buttressed by another finding of the study that documented a more widely known disparity in criminal caseloads between districts in different regions. These regional differences are driven by the large number of immigration cases along the Southwest border where judges have long complained they handle too many cases to give each one proper consideration.

"We have many more complex cases than most of the districts listed in the report," said Washington's chief judge, Royce Lamberth. He noted the court handles public corruption cases, white-collar cases and any prosecution for obstruction of Congress, which can be time-consuming. Just this year, the court tried former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens on charges of perjury, making false statements and obstructing Congress for denying he had used performance-enhancing drugs. A jury acquitted Mr. Clemens of all charges after a trial that lasted more than nine weeks.

"So comparing a case in which there's a one-hour, at most, guilty plea in an immigration violation, and probably one hour spent on sentencing, can't really compare to the kinds of cases we're doing," Judge Lamberth said.

The clearinghouse study analyzed the criminal case-loads of 430 federal district judges who were all active for the entire study period, almost six years. It measured workload by sentencings and excluded acquittals because "acquittals are exceedingly rare," said Susan Long, a co-director of TRAC and co-author of the report, along with former New York Times investigative reporter David Burnham, TRAC's other co-director.

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